[1,2-Bis(diphenylphosphino)ethane]chlorido(η5-pentamethylcyclopentadienyl)iron(II) dichloromethane solvate

In the title compound, [Fe(C10H15)Cl(C26H24P2)]·CH2Cl2, the FeII atom is coordinated by two P atoms from a 1,2-bis(diphenylphosphino)ethane ligand [Fe—P = 2.2130 (7) and 2.2231 (7) Å], a chloride anion [Fe—Cl = 2.3329 (7) Å] and a pentamethylcyclopentadienyl (Cp*) ligand [Fe—centroid(Cp*) = 1.732 (3) Å] in a typical piano-stool geometry. In the crystal structure, the complex and solvent molecules are paired via weak C—H⋯Cl interactions.


Comment
The compound Fe(Cp*)(dppe)Cl, widely applied to many fields of organometallic chemistry, was yielded from the reaction of Fe(dppe)Cl (dppe=1,2-bis(diphenylphosphino)ethane) with LiCp* (Cp* = η5-pentamethylcylopentadienyl) in THF (Roger et al., 1991). Because of the labile character of the Fe-Cl bond, the chlorine atom can be replaced by various groups such as acetonitrile, iodine, methyl and so on.
Herewith we report the crystal structure of the title compound (I) (Fig. 1). The molecule exhibits a pseudooctahedral geometry, similar to that observed in close compounds (Roger et al.1991). When Fe II was oxidized to Fe III (Tilset et al., 2001), the Fe-Cl bond length changed from 2.3329 (7) Å in (I) to 2.237 (1) Å. In addtion, as compared with the crystal structure of the Cp*(dppp)FeCl (dppp = 1,3-bis(diphenylphosphino)propane) (Argouarch et al. , 2002), the title compound shows a weak decreasing of the iron C 5 -ring centroid distance of ca 0.014 Å, an shortening of ca 0.017 Å in the Fe-P bond distances, and the Fe-Cl bond length also shows a decreasing of ca 0.013 Å, The major difference between these two structures deals with an decreasing of 7.11° of the P1-Fe-P2 angle in the title compound.
In the crystal structure of (I), the complex and solvent molecules are paired via the weak C-H···Cl interaction (Table 1).

Experimental
The title compound was synthesized according to the literature procedure of Roger et al. (1991) Single crystals suitable for X-ray diffraction were prepared by slow evaporation of a solution of the title compound in dichloromethane: n-hexane (1: 10) at room temperature.

Refinement
All H atoms were initially located in a difference map, but were constrained to an idealized geometry. Constrained bond lengths and isotropic displacement parameters: (C-H =0.93 Å) and U iso (H) =1.2U eq (C) for aromatic H atoms, and (C-H =0.97 Å) and U iso (H) =1.2U eq (C) for methylene, and (C-H =0.96 Å) and U iso (H) =1.5U eq (C) for methyl. as those based on F, and R-factors based on ALL data will be even larger.